Ajahn Chah Dharma Talk (Ajahn Amaro)

Ajahn Amaro; Ajahn Chah (ajahnchah.org); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Ajahn Chah: Part 1, Chapter 1, The Middle Way Within

(Gradientsea, 11/16/13) These are recordings of the complete collection of all the talks by Ajahn Chah of the Thai Forest Tradition that have been translated into English and are published in The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah, 2011. These Dhamma talks were read and recorded by Ajahn Amaro during the winter of 2012.

Ajahn Chah: The Key to Liberation (video)

Ajahn Chah read by Ajahn Jayasaro, 1/6/13 (1983dukkha); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Ajahn Chah (Thai ชา สุภัทโท, Phra Achaan Chah Subhaddo, Luang Por, Phra Bodhiñāṇathera, พระโพธิญาณเถร, Chao Khun Bodhinyana Thera, June 17, 1918–January 16, 1992) was an enlightened Thai Theravada Buddhist monk.

He was an influential teacher of the Buddha Dharma (Dhamma) and the founder of two major meditation centers and monasteries in the Thai Forest Tradition.

Respected and loved in his own country as a monk of great wisdom, he was also instrumental in establishing Theravada Buddhism in the West.

Beginning in 1979 with the founding of Cittaviveka (Chithurst Buddhist Monastery) in England, the Forest Tradition of Ajahn Chah has spread throughout the U.S., Europe, and the British Commonwealth.

His Dharma talks have been recorded, transcribed, and translated into several languages.

More than one million people, including the Thai royal family, attended Ajahn Chah's funeral in January 1993, a year after his passing due to the "hundreds of thousands of people [that were] expected to attend." He left behind a legacy of Dharma talks, students, and monasteries.

I want to be enlightened so I'm unenlightened

Ajahn Amaro; Ajahn Chah via Ven. Sujato, Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

I want to be enlightened. What do I need to do?

When suffering ceases, where do we go? What are we practicing [the Buddhist path to enlightenment] for? We are practicing to relinquish [to let go], not in order to gain anything.

There was a woman this afternoon who told me that she is suffering. I asked her what she wants to be. And she said she wants to be "enlightened."

I said, "As long as you want to be enlightened, you will never become enlightened. Don’t want anything. [Let go instead.]

The Cure for Death

Look! It's Death/Mara! (R. W. Machell, 1895)

If we trained properly, we wouldn’t feel frightened when we fall ill, nor upset when someone else dies.

When you go to the hospital for treatment, determine in your mind that if you get better, that’s fine, and that if you die, that’s fine, too.

I guarantee that if the doctors told me I were sick and going to die in a few months, I’d remind them: "Watch out. Death is coming to get you, too. It’s just a question of who goes first and who goes later."

Doctors are not going to cure death or prevent it. Only the Buddha was such a doctor, the master physician, so why not go ahead and use the Buddha’s medicine?

When it's time to die and you're next (audio)

Ajahn Jayasaro, "Our Real Home: A Talk to an Aging Lay Disciple Approaching Death" by Ajahn Chah, Sangha at Wat Pah Nanachat (trans.), 1983dukkha, Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah (2012), a complete collection of talks translated into English, recorded by Abbot Ajahn Amaro, Amaravati, England.

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This body is hurtling toward destruction.

Now determine in your mind to listen with respect to the Dhamma (the Dharma, the Buddha's Teaching). During the time that I am speaking, be as attentive to my words as if it were the Buddha himself sitting in front of you.

Close your eyes and make yourself comfortable, compose your mind, and make it one-pointed. Humbly allow the Triple Gem of wisdom, truth, and purity to abide in your heart as a way of showing respect to the Fully Enlightened One.

"We practice to learn letting go." - Ajahn Chah

Today I have brought nothing material of any substance to offer you, only Dhamma, the teachings of the Buddha. Listen well. You should understand that even the Buddha himself, with his great store of accumulated virtue [good karma], could not avoid physical death.

When he reached old age he relinquished his body and let go of its heavy burden. Now you, too, must learn to be satisfied with the many years you've already depended on your body. You should feel that it's enough.

You can compare it to household utensils you've had for a long time — your cups, saucers, plates, and so on. When you first had them they were clean and shining, but now after using them for so long, they're starting to wear out. Some are already broken, some have disappeared, and those that are left are deteriorating. They have no stable form, and it's their nature to be like that.

Your body is the same way: It's been continually changing right from the day you were born, through childhood and youth, until now it's reached old age. You must accept that. The Buddha said that conditions (sankharas), whether they are internal conditions, bodily conditions, or external conditions, are not-self (impersonal), their nature is to change. Contemplate this truth until you see it clearly.

One day, black and blue, this body is a log.

This very lump of flesh that lies here in decline is sacca-dhamma, the truth. The truth of this body is sacca-dhamma, and it is the unchanging teaching of the Buddha. The Buddha taught us to look at the body, to contemplate it and come to terms with its nature.

We must be able to be at peace with the body, whatever state it is in. The Buddha taught that we should ensure that it's only the body that is locked up in jail and not let the mind be imprisoned along with it.

Now as your body begins to run down and deteriorate with age, don't resist that, but don't let your mind deteriorate with it. Keep the mind separate. Give energy to the mind by realizing the truth of the way things are.

The Buddha taught that this is the nature of the body. It can't be any other way: Having been born, it gets old and sick, and then it dies. This is a great truth you are presently encountering. Look at the body with wisdom and realize it.

Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, England

Even if your house is flooded or burnt to the ground, whatever the danger that threatens it, let it concern only the house. If there's a flood, don't let it flood your mind. If there's a fire, don't let it burn your heart. Let it be merely the house, which is external to you, that is flooded and burnt. Allow the mind to let go of attachments.

The time is ripe. You've been alive a long time. More

Beloved monk leaves California monastery

Ajahn Amaro leaves Abhayagiri Monastery

Special to the Ukiah Daily Journal

Ajahn Amaro, the founding abbot of California's Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery in Redwood Valley, will be moving to England this month to fill the role as abbot of Amaravati Monastery near London.

Since moving to Redwood Valley in 1996, Amaro has been generous in sharing the teachings of the Buddha with our local community. He has offered many classes, guided meditations, and daylong mini-retreats at the monastery as well as at Yoga Mendocino in town. Larry Restel, an investment adviser from Ukiah, first met Amaro in 1990 in England:

"I've seen him grow up as a monk. He feels like a brother to me," Restel said. "He's always been amazing. When he gives one of his well-known talks, if he has to finish by ten o'clock, he'll be finished at ten. He weaves his stories so intricately, with so many different branches, but when there's only a minute to go he ties up all the knots. The tradition with Theravada Buddhist monastics is that people keep coming and going. So to me it seems natural that he's heading to England."

Amaro, who was born in England and just two years ago gained American citizenship, enjoys talking about the environment. He notes that the weather seems to be reversing between these two countries. "This year, Mendocino County, cold and rainy, experienced what we once thought of as being English weather," Amaro said.

"My sister, a gardener back in England, recently reported that once-green fields are already parched from too much sun, certainly what we in Mendocino County consider to be our weather." Although he is looking forward to seeing the seasons change, Amaro has mixed feelings about leaving Abhayagiri. More>>

Life outside the monastery

• Could MBAs be the answer to monks' prayers?
• Burma rebels to walk free after 12 years in Indian jail
  (BBC) A group of 34 Burmese rebels held in an Indian jail for 12 years have entered a plea bargain in a Calcutta court to pave the way for their release.
• India: Protesters, police face off on streets of Kashmir
• China: Beijing starts gating, locking migrant villages
• Ireland: Belfast leaders decry youths' zeal for rioting
• Africa: 5 die in new religious violence in Nigeria
• Libyan ship carrying aid for Gaza heads for Egypt

Thai Wisdom

Thai fine art (onepen.com)

Most Americans who ordain, or who have a teacher from former ordinations, have done so in the Thai Forest Tradition. Indeed, many Westerners have found Thailand to be very receptive to ordaining foreigners and providing English-speaking Western teachers of long standing -- Ajahn ("teacher") Brahmavamso, Amaro, Sumedho, Thanissaro, Khantipalo, and so on.

Ajahn Chah was the teacher that revolutionized the practice of training foreigners in the forest, particularly an international monastery set up for this purpose, Wat Pah Nanachat, which was made famous in the book What the Buddha Never Taught by its comedic Canadian-American author, the former monk Tim Ward, and the seminal Living Buddhist Masters by Jack Kornfield.

Thai Buddhism
Leslie Barclay (geocities)

Ajahn Chah
"Why are we born? We are born so that we will not have to be born again."

"If your mind is happy, then you are happy anywhere you go. When wisdom awakens within you, you will see Truth wherever you look. Truth's all there is. It's like when you've learned how to read -- you can then read anywhere you go."

Ajahn Chah (listen to the wisdom of his Dharma talks)

"People who suffer will accordingly gain wisdom. If we don't suffer, we don't contemplate. If we don't contemplate, no wisdom is born. Without wisdom, we don't know. Not knowing, we can't get free of suffering -- that's just the way it is. Therefore, we must train and endure in our practice. When we then reflect on the world, we won't be afraid like before. It isn't that the Buddha was enlightened outside of the world, but within the world itself."

"Remember you don't meditate to 'get anything', but to get 'rid' of things. We do it, not with desire, but with letting go. If you 'want' anything, you won't find it."

"Everything is uncertain. Don't cling to anything."

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu
"Using metaphors makes it easier for us to understand the matter we're discussing. So we will make use of them here today. The first prison which you must look for and see is life itself. If you look on life as a prison, and see the prison that it is, then we must say that you know the truth of nature quite well. Most people, however, look on life as something enjoyable, as an opportunity to have fun. They are willing to live for the enjoyment of life. They then become infatuated with and engrossed in life, which is what turns it into prison."

"Even the present life does not exist, How could the after-life exist?"

Ajahn Fuang
"Before you say anything, ask yourself whether it's necessary or not. If it's not, don't say it. This is the first step in training the mind. If you can't have any control over your mouth, how can you expect to have any control over your mind?"

"The breath can take you all the way to Nirvana."

"It's good that most people can't remember their previous lives. Otherwise, things would be much more complicated than they already are."

(onepen.com)

History
Two thousand years ago, the original ancestors of the people who now largely call themselves Thai migrated to the region now known as Thailand. These Thai tribes from Southeast China mixed over the centuries with local Mon and Khmer peoples as well as Malay, Indian, and Chinese immigrants. Each group brought with them bits of Buddhism from their native lands. These were the first Buddhist incursions into what was then likely an Animist culture.

Buddhism had begun about five centuries before that. (See -- "Who was the Buddha?" and See -- "The Teachings of the Buddha").

In the 12th century, Thailand received another infusion of Buddhism, and this one really took. Burmese and Thai monks traveled to Sri Lanka, where they learned and brought back Theravada Buddhism. These new ideas and practices effectively displaced the Mahayana Buddhism which had come earlier.

Early Thai kingdoms were ruled by enlightened kings who (symbolically) chose to share their throne with Buddhist monks, who acted to propagate the religion. Buddhism spread farther by the publication of works under royal patronage (including one great Thai volume of scriptures).

Buddhism influenced all aspects of Thai culture, from art and architecture to the moral outlook of the people. Following the decline of one kingdom, another flourished and so did Buddhism. Today travelers can wander the ruins and appreciate the beauty of Buddhism in Thailand.

Conquered and destroyed by Burma, Thai kingdoms were reestablished. Most kings have worked to support Buddhism as a foundation of Thai society. The very first king of the current dynasty, King Rama I, helped standardize the basic Buddhist temple rules and procedures throughout the country.

It is the custom of Thai kings (as well as all young men) to temporarily ordain as monks for a brief period when they are young. One king, Rama IV who reigned from 1851-1868, actually spent 27 years of his life as a monk (and abbot) before becoming a king. As king, he tried to purify Buddhism in Thailand and bring it back to its true essence. In so doing, he created a second sect of Buddhism in Thailand, the Dhammayut, or school clinging steadfastly to the Dharma and Rules. The monks belonging to this sect, for instance, walk about barefoot.

Today in a country of 60 million, there are said to be 30,000 Buddhist temples and 300,000 monks. Ninety percent of the people profess Theravada Buddhism.